You wouldn't know it unless you examined the clothing and shoes up close, but Newport Coast's new Affluent Goods is a consignment boutique. Unlike a typical resale store, though, the shop purposely comes across as a high-end retailer that you might find at Fashion Island, down to the printed barcode price tags and spare decor.

The shop is part of a new wave of designer resale boutiques in Orange County that are raising the bar of luxury fashion consignment.

Unlike consignment stores of previous decades that carried designer items, these boutiques do not have signs that state that the merchandise is pre-owned. All of them have an e-commerce presence to tap a broader market.

They often carry some hard-to-get designer items that are highly coveted in fashionista circles and priced to bring in top dollars.

The economic recession rekindled the demand for secondhand goods and led to considerable growth in pre-owned merchandise nationwide, according to a 2012 report on used goods stores in the U.S. by IBISWorld Inc., an industry analysis company.

Specialty stores for used women's clothing and accessories, in particular, are expected to continue growing in the next five years, the report predicts.

In addition to Affluent Goods in the Newport Coast Shopping Center, Delux Luxury opened last year at The Cove on North Coast Highway in Newport Beach. Wardrobe Ltd., the first brick-and-mortar store by Seattle-based Austin Deppa, who runs an online consignment business, will open in early February inside The OC Mix at South Coast Collection in Costa Mesa.

The stores tend to be close to affluent beach cities, which speaks to the "strength of the coastal market," from a resale retail view, said Greg Stoffel, retail consultant and principal at Stoffel & Associates in Irvine.

People aren't necessarily giving up the look of a well-off lifestyle, they're just doing it on a relatively smaller budget, said Samantha Matteson, owner of Delux Luxury.

"People have lost their jobs, so they're consigning their things or buying pre-owned for less," Matteson said. "They all want a deal."

No one would mistake these shops for Goodwill or Assistance League stores. The "deals" means designer items still may be priced for hundreds, even thousands. Goods under $100 are the exception.

Matteson, who said she left a banking career several years ago to embark on something she's always wanted to do, designed her Newport resale boutique to look like a rich woman's "walk-in closet," with dark wood panels and floors. The offerings can range from a Giorgio Armani cocktail outfit for $425 or a Missoni halter dress for $250 to a never-worn Gucci gown with Swarovski crystals for $1,350.

The items usually come from people who live in Orange County, especially those in upscale neighborhoods, and from select stores for new goods. "If the clothes had been on the sale rack for a long time, (the store owners) drop it off with me," she said.

About 30 percent of the items she receives have their original tags and have never been worn. "Sometimes, they call me because they have five of everything in every color and they don't want to keep all of it," Matteson said.

Evening outfits usually have been worn only once, "especially if it's been worn to a charity event and the owner has been photographed in it," Matteson said.

Leslie Christen, a Laguna Beach fashion stylist who shops for and styles the wardrobes of some ultra-affluent women in Orange County, said the supply of designer merchandise is steady because the women change their wardrobe seasonally.

In some cases, "the secret is that they've been put on a 'budget' but they still want the luxury goods so they have to get it not this season but the season after," she said. To be able to afford the newest designer merchandise, they put the items that they haven't used or worn or no longer like on consignment.

Christen goes through her clients' closets several times a year, weeding out the clothing and accessories that often are put on consignment at stores such as OnQueStyle, a Corona del Mar luxury resale retailer that opened in 2009 in the midst of the recession.

Pricing depends on the item, the condition of the item and what something similar is selling for online. Consignors can receive anywhere from 40 percent to 70 percent of the price, depending on the retailers.

Once an item is accepted, the blouse or purse or evening gown is photographed, priced, posted in the online store and usually displayed in the store.

Not everything with a designer name necessarily makes for an ideal resale item, said Eddie Prosser, CEO of OnQueStyle, who co-owns the store with his wife, Kirsten Prosser, and plans to open more boutiques.

Some European brands have more cachet and retain their value more than others. Slicing that group even more, some items under those brands are highly coveted because they're elusive in the designer boutiques and have been made famous by celebrities who own them.

The most obvious of the lot: handmade Hermes Birkin and Kelly handbags, which typically retail from a start of about $11,000 and keep climbing.

Some pre-owned, hard-to-find Birkins and Kellys sometimes are more expensive at Delux Luxury, OnQueStyle and Affluent Goods than they are at the Hermes store at South Coast Plaza, from $13,000 to nearly $45,000. That's because retail shoppers usually must be established or VIP Hermes customers to score the purses.

Neither the Birkins nor the Kellys are sold online at the Hermes website, and until a few years ago, fans of the handbags placed their names on a years-long waiting list for handbags.

"You can't just get it at the Hermes boutique," said Abbey Said, owner and CEO of Affluent Goods, who owns Hermes handbags. "It's not even about the wait. You have to shop at Hermes and shop the lifestyle in the six figures. Then you (can buy) your first Birkin."

But gently-used handbags are available immediately at the resale stores – for a price. At OnQueStyle, the selection of Birkins ranges from $11,995 for a simple black bag to $44,995 for a gray crocodile purse.

Counterfeits abound at online stores, so owners of local resale boutiques have to verify the authenticity of the goods they're about to sell.

Said and Matteson said they often take items to the designer boutiques at South Coast Plaza or Neiman Marcus to have them checked before they decide to accept them for consignment.

The resale of pre-owned designer fashion in upscale consignment stores can be beneficial to the signature boutiques for Hermes, Chanel and others.

"From the perspective of the brand, it allows more consumers to have access to their products and display the brand logos," said Morgan Ward, assistant professor of marketing at Southern Methodist University.

"Moreover, it allows a new, less financially endowed customer to potentially have access to the product. This may be good for the brand or it may be detrimental for the brand, depending on whether they want to expand their consumer base into lower income brackets."

Stoffel agrees. "(The resale stores) complement the luxury brands," he said. "The customers for both are the same. They're just trying to make their fashion allocation go farther."

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